2 november 2000

By Bridget Byrne

LOS ANGELES - Felicity and Noel are whispering private confidences in the library. Ben and Molly are trying to confront personal issues at an Al-Anon meeting. It's a typical afternoon on the set of Felicity, the WB drama that explores the friendships and follies of a group of New York college students. The coterie includes Felicity, played by Keri Russell, Ben, played by Scott Speedman and Noel, played by Scott Foley. British actress, Sarah-Jane Potts, plays Molly, an exchange student who entered the mix early this season. Standing in for New York locations is Patriotic Hall, a veteran downtown Los Angeles edifice, with the high ceilings and dated decor of a pre-Internet world. Its assembly rooms make an interesting stolid, drab backdrop to the concerns of these bright, young things struggling to find their emotional footing in the highly charged, fast-paced new millennium. Keeping one's footing is a prime theme on Felicity. In its third season, the show now airs Wednesdays at 9-10 p.m. (ET/PT), a timeslot which pits it against NBC's hit drama The West Wing. Which leads one to wonder if Felicity will keep her footing survive to experience a senior year? The WB, a network choker-block with youth oriented series, hasn't decided. This junior year, the show has dropped off in ratings a little from its lead-in, Dawson's Creek, but continues to be top rated with women 12-34, the network's key demographic. Eleven original episodes air into December, then the show will go on hiatus to make way for Jack and Jill. Scripts have been ordered for more episodes, but the green light for filming them has not yet flashed. So the show's producers are stepping up to the plate, emphasizing Felicity's strengths and noting that it has gained in viewership with men and slightly older audiences. They are also confessing to a few mea culpas. Felicity's hair, however, is not one of those. Executive producer and co-creator Matt Reeves thinks it "an incredible exaggeration" to blame the show's lack of positive buzz last season on the brouhaha surrounding Russell's decision to shear her curls. Much more problematic, he believes, was the twist in the script that broke off the budding relationship between the lovely Felicity and the intriguingly handsome Ben. "That drove us into a dead end," he admits. Executive producer J.J. Abrams, who created the show with Reeves, agrees and offers an additional reason. "I don't think 'the hair' damaged the show," he says pointing a finger instead at last season's move into a Sunday timeslot. Returning to the breakup, Abrams says he feels the second season script choices let Felicity down, because she not only looked different from the first year, but she was acting differently, confusing the audience who had empathized with her. So this season the concept has been to support Felicity as much as possible, with plot lines that don't play the character false, which allow her to reveal more humor, and which place more emphasis on the ensemble. Both producers claim that Russell is relieved not to have to handle the whole burden of the show. Reeves says that the shift to a broader canvas not only allows the 24-year-old star more time to "think and live her own life," but mirrors Russell's own innate modest nature: "She couldn't be more of a joy to work with. Her main concern, as always, is for how everyone else is doing." Russell, her curls now shoulder length, ducks out following her library scene with Foley. But she talks over the phone a couple of days later. "It's fair to say it's a bit more of an ensemble this season. We used to do a lot of just two person scenes, now we are doing more with several characters in them. There's a higher energy." How does that impact her? "It definitely helps with the workload," she laughs, admitting, "it was overwhelming at times," to carry the onus. "There are so many good actors on the show, it's great to see room opening up for them," she says, mentioning in particular Speedman and Tangi Miller who plays Elena. Speedman's Ben is being drawn into the problems haunting Molly. "It's a storyline dealing with issues we haven't touched on before," says Russell, noting she'll be interested to see how fans react. And what's with Ben and Felicity? "She definitely loves Ben, and Ben definitely loves her. They are together," she says, but notes the couple has not yet reached resolution over what happened to Felicity on that "irresponsible" night in a strange bed. "The balance gives the stories much more reality. It was too contriving to get Felicity involved in everything going on," says Reeves. Abrams voices much the same rationalization. He compares this strengthening of the ensemble to similar developments on another single titled female show, Fox's Ally McBeal. As Abrams mentions, Felicity doesn't have "law, or crime, or medicine, or vampires," to fall back on. Its strength lies in the authentic depiction of intimate emotions. It will, however, have the requisite guest stars during the November sweeps to add further spice to the mix. Supermodel Tyra Banks shows up on November 8th for three episodes as a beautiful computer user whom Noel hopes to date. John Ritter has a continuing story arc as Ben's troubled alcoholic dad, who seeks comfort from Felicity in an entirely inappropriate manner. Reeves co-wrote and produced the movie The Yards, and recently directed the pilot for ABC's new medical drama Gideon's Crossing. Abrams wrote the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon, and wrote and produced the upcoming thriller Squelch. When they first pitched the idea of this college student drama to the network, they envisioned not just following the young woman's life through four years of college but on into at least a fifth season as she steps into a career. Now they are trying hard to make that happen. Potts' addition to the show resulted from a meeting set up by an agency that represents both the producers and the spunky 24-year-old Yorkshire-born actress. "We had an idea for a storyline she seemed perfect for, and adjusting it to be about someone British added a certain mystique," says Reeves. Potts, a seasoned actress, who recently moved to America to live with her boyfriend Erik Palladino, who plays Dr. Dave Malucci on NBC's ER, says of Molly, "She has a different edge to her ... a little bit left of the middle."